Pakistan court frees ousted PM Nawaz Sharif and daughter

Jailed former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif arriving to attend the funeral prayer of his late wife Kulsoom Nawaz in Lahore on September 14th. Photograph: Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images

A Pakistani court on Wednesday ordered the release from jail of ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his daughter, suspending prison sentences that a lower court handed down in July over the purchase of upscale apartments in London.

Mr Sharif’s supporters cheered as the Islamabad high court suspended the 10-year jail term of the three-time premier, who was once the favourite of Pakistan’s powerful generals but has since fallen out and clashed with the military.

The ruling comes almost two months after Mr Sharif’s party lost a general election to the party of new prime minister Imran Khan. Mr Sharif’s party and others allege the July 25th polls were rigged to favour Mr Khan, seen to be close to the army.

The court also freed Mr Sharif’s daughter and political heir Maryam, who was jailed for seven years on corruption charges relating to the family’s acquisition of the London flats.

“The prosecution has failed to show the properties belong to Nawaz Sharif,” Justice Athar Minallah told the court. “It also failed to prove how was Maryam Nawaz sentenced under the same charge sheet which convicted Nawaz Sharif.”

The convictions are still under appeal with the same Islamabad high court, but the judge said they should be freed immediately while the case continues.

“Justice has been served, and I congratulate Nawaz Sharif’s supporters,” former foreign minister Khawaja Asif, a staunch Sharif ally, said outside the courtroom, where supporters chanted pro-Sharif slogans.

Mr Sharif was ousted and disqualified from holding office by the supreme court in July 2017 and jailed earlier this year in absentia. He was arrested on July 13th upon returning from London.

Panama Papers

The case against Mr Sharif stemmed from 2016 Panama Papers revelations that showed his family owned the London apartments through offshore companies. Maryam was convicted for concealing ownership of the properties. They both deny wrongdoing.

Supporters of Nawaz Sharif celebrate after a court ordered his release, in Multan, Pakistan, on Wednesday. Photograph: Faisal Kareem/EPA

Mr Sharif’s release comes a week after the death aged 68 of Kulsoom, his wife of 47 years, who had been battling cancer in a London hospital. The former first lady’s funeral in Pakistan, for which the family were briefly paroled, gripped the nation.

Mr Sharif has repeatedly called the cases against him politically motivated, suggesting collusion between the military and courts to destabilise his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party and throw him out of power.

Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), the ruling party led by former cricketer Mr Khan, said the judiciary was independent and the cases would continue.

“The Sharif family still has not proven where the billions of rupees came from for their property,” said Fawad Chauhdry, the government’s information minister, according to PTI’s official Twitter account.

In opposition, Mr Khan was a vocal supporter of the legal cases that saw the supreme court removed Mr Sharif from office.

Mr Sharif, a political survivor, was previously jailed after the 1999 coup by military ruler Pervez Musharraf. Mr Sharif later went into exile after striking a deal with the military and returned in 2007 to contest an election after Mr Musharraf stepped down in the face of mass protests.

His impending release comes as Mr Khan is making his first official overseas trip to Saudi Arabia, the country that gave Mr Sharif shelter after the 1999 coup, where he is reportedly seeking financial help to stave off the likelihood of another IMF bailout.